Irish uses seem to have been largely different. Apart from a repeat of the
southern English cure for warts in Louth,^32 those recorded include for heart-
burn (Clare,^33 Limerick^34 ), kidney trouble (Meath^35 ), hydrophobia (the
north-western Midlands),^36 mumps or swollen glands (the Aran Islands^37 )—
but in this case only after boiling the juice to allay the possibility of blistering—
and consumption or suppurating tuberculosis (the western border counties,^38
Galway^39 ). The acrid species have also shared with the non-acridRanunculus
repens popularity only there as a jaundice cure (Antrim,^40 Carlow^41 ).
Ranunculus aquatilis Linnaeus, in the broad sense
water-crowfoot
Eurasia, North Africa, North America; introduced into Australasia,
South America
(Identification questionable) A herb known in Manx aslus y vuc awin,‘the
river pig wort’, and used for scalds was identified asRanunculus aquatilisby a
local collector competent in botany,^42 but the species found in the Isle of Man
towhich the name in a collective sense would have been applied occur there
almost exclusively in ponds, which puts the identification in doubt; the float-
ing pondweedPotamogeton natans,a known scald herb, seems more likely.
Thomas Pennant reported that in the Highlands, ‘the water ranunculus is
used instead of cantharides to raise blisters’.^43 Although at least one later
author^44 has assumed he intended by that the standard blister herb, lesser
spearwort,Ranunculus flammula,possibly he was referring to the ‘crowfoot
of the moor’ which his predecessor Martin Martin had been told in Skye was
found the more effective there for that purpose (and used as well to alleviate
sciatica).^45 Perhaps that was R. hederaceus,though it is one of Skye’s rarer
plants.
Ranunculus hederaceus Linnaeus
ivy-leaved crowfoot
western Europe
Ranunculus hederaceus was identified botanically as (at least in part) the
‘peabar uisgi’,which, pounded between stones, formed a main ingredient in
poultices applied to scrofula on Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides.^46 As men-
tioned above, one or other of the caustic species of buttercup is on record as
having been in wide use in part of northern Ireland for suppurating tuber-
culosis; possibly this less common relative had been found in the Hebrides to
be more efficacious.
Water-lilies, Buttercups and Poppies 73